_|Nigeria: July-26-2008, HPAIV H5N1 In Poultry|_

[Giuseppe]

Re: _|Nigeria: July-26-2008, HPAIV H5N1 In Poultry|_

[OIE] Bird flu strain in Nigeria already known to scientists

PARIS , France 13 August 2008 :

During routine surveillance in Nigeria for highly pathogenic avian influenza in poultry, one chicken and one duck sampled in June and July 2008 at the live bird markets of Gombe and Kebbi, were found positive for the H5N1 virus.

This was the first positive finding in Nigeria of the disease since the last reported case of highly pathogenic avian influenza in January 2008.

The new outbreak was reported promptly to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) by the veterinary authority of Nigeria on 24 July 2008 .

An epidemiological investigation was initiated and samples were send to the OIE/FAO reference laboratory, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie in Padova , Italy for further investigation.

The laboratory is part OFFLU, the worldwide OIE/FAO avian influenza laboratory network.

Tests conducted at the laboratory confirmed that the virus from Gombe closely resembles the virus isolated from wild birds in Central Europe ( Romania and the Czech Republic ) in 2007.

It is the first detection of this strain on the Africa continent.

It is still unclear how the virus of this specific sublineage was introduced into Africa .

Further investigations on additional isolates of the virus from Kebbi, Kano and Katsina states in Nigeria are in progress at the laboratory in Padova.

?This finding supports the consensus amongst scientists that avian influenza infections caused by viruses of the H5N1 subtype are still a concern for animal health and that continuous surveillance, early detection and reporting are essential to understand the evolution of the situation? said OIE Deputy Director General, Dr Gideon Br?ckner.

He emphasised that this incident was not caused by a new strain of the virus and that there is no evidence of increased human health risks linked to the novel introduction of this strain into Africa .

Maria Zampaglione
Updated : 13-Ao?-2008
-

http://www.oie.int/eng/press/en_080813.htm

--------

[HenryN]

Re: _|Nigeria: July-26-2008, HPAIV H5N1 In Poultry|_

Tests conducted at the laboratory confirmed that the virus from Gombe closely resembles the virus isolated from wild birds in Central Europe ( Romania and the Czech Republic ) in 2007.

The above description leaves no doubt that the H5N1 in Nigeria is clade 2.2.3 (Uvs Lake strain).

[Shiloh]

Re: _|Nigeria: July-26-2008, HPAIV H5N1 In Poultry|_

Source: http://www.modernghana.com/news/1786...ria-again.html

Bird Flu In Nigeria Again!
By Daily Guide - Daily Guide
Business/Finance | Thu, 14 Aug 2008

A new strain of avian influenza virus (bird flu), never before reported in Africa, has been detected in Nigeria, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has announced.

A statement by the organisation said tests conducted by Nigeria and FAO showed that the new virus strain was similar to strains identified last year in Italy, Afghanistan and Iran.

The statement further said the new virus ?is genetically distinct from other forms detected in Nigerian outbreaks in 2006 and 2007?.

?It seems unlikely that wild birds have carried the strain to Africa, since the last migration of wild birds from Europe and Central Asia to Africa occurred in September 2007.

?This year's southerly migration into Africa has not really started yet,? Scott Newman, International Wildlife Coordinator of FAO's Animal Health Service, said in the statement.

He also pointed out other avenues the virus could reach Nigeria as international trade or illegal and unreported movement of poultry.

?This increases the risk of an avian influenza spread to other countries in Western Africa,? the statement noted.

It said the FAO had already called for increased surveillance to monitor the virus and track its spread.

?Many countries have succeeded in getting the virus under control; but as long as avian influenza remains endemic in some countries, the international community needs to be on alert,? FAO's chief veterinary officer, Joseph Domenech, said.

Since the avian flu epidemic caused by the H5N1 strain started five years ago in Asia, more than 60 countries have so far been affected.

In Nigeria, bird flu was first confirmed in February 2006 and infected poultry in 25 states before being contained.

The statement said FAO has a team of animal health experts and veterinary epidemiologists working in the country.

In Ghana, when the virus was detected last year, a total of 1,965 birds were destroyed on three farms and the government has to pay Over GH?8,800 as compensation to three poultry farmers whose birds and farm implements were destroyed as a result of the outbreak of the disease on their farms at Asuokwa, near Sunyani.

By Felix Dela Klutse

[HenryN]

Re: _|Nigeria: July-26-2008, HPAIV H5N1 In Poultry|_

Commentary

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/08140801/H5N1_Nigeria_Uvs.html

[HenryN]

Re: _|Nigeria: July-26-2008, HPAIV H5N1 In Poultry|_

<TABLE style="DIRECTION: ltr" width="100&#37;" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>Scientists Dispute Role of Wildlife Migration in Advancing Nigeria's Latest Bird Flu Outbreak</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top>By Howard Lesser
Washington, DC
14 August 2008

</TD><TD vAlign=top align=left></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Wildlife Conservation Society's Dr. Kristine Smith - Download (MP3)
Wildlife Conservation Society's Dr. Kristine Smith - Listen (MP3) </SPAN>
Wildlife Conservation Society's Dr. Kristine Smith - Download (Real)
Wildlife Conservation Society's Dr. Kristine Smith - Listen (Real) </SPAN>



Scientists are doubtful that the latest disease-producing strain of avian flu detected in Nigeria originated with wild migratory birds that annually migrate there from Europe or Central Asia. They say the newly discovered strain most likely stems from the illicit or unreported trade of domestic poultry across borders, a process that can be monitored and regulated if governments and health authorities work to implement stronger, protective safeguards. Dr. Kristine Smith is Assistant Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Global Health Programs. She says that the current Class Three wave of bird influenza means a loss of trade and the precautionary destruction of thousands of domestic poultry.

“For Nigeria in particular, it’s been quite serious as far as their economy goes and the direct impact on their poultry industry. H5N1 being a zoonotic disease, meaning infectious to humans, it continues to pose a threat to humans’ health. These high-path H5N1 strains, as far as Nigeria is concerned, we are watching it quite closely in the poultry markets because it obviously is a food security issue,” she said.

Smith says the reason that scientists who are tracking the spread of the disease are dispelling reports of wild bird migrations causing the current bout in Nigeria is that it has been shown that this year’s migration season has not yet begun.

“What we have suspected has caused most of the outbreaks has been through the movement of domestic poultry – domestic chickens or domestic ducks. These animals are moved both legally and illegally within a nation and internationally, and that is how this disease spreads quite a bit. However, wild birds have played a relatively small role in moving the disease from country to country during their migration movements; however, a lot of those times, those infections don’t result in larger infections of poultry and people. This particular strain that has just hit Nigeria has hit well before the migratory movement of birds heading south from Europe and Asia, and so therefore, it’s not likely at all that wild birds played a role in this new outbreak,” she stated.

The Wildlife Conservation Society, which is based at New York’s famed Bronx Zoo, continues to make a serious effort to heighten awareness of the need to trace how poultry enters our food supply system. Calling illegal food trade across borders a multi-billion-dollar industry “comparable to the international drug trade,” Smith says the threat posed by shipping poultry to markets domestically and across borders today is greater than ever before.

“It’s huge, and it’s not limited to poultry and even influenza, but both legal and illegal movement of domestic and wildlife animals and products is largely unrecorded and unregulated and undefined. And given the increased globalization of today’s world, where we have much more contact with different species of animals, wildlife, and livestock and humans, with the trade, we’re seeing an increase in occurrence of these major infectious diseases,” she notes.

Smith, a field veterinarian, credits the capability of Nigerian authorities to curb the spread of the influenza.

“Nigeria has been one of those countries that have been wonderfully working very diligently -- their government, with their internal forces and external international assistance. And they’re doing a wonderful job of responding to these outbreaks,” she says.

Smith points to some advantages that Nigeria has that have enabled its medical and civil authorities to contain the country’s multiple outbreaks effectively.

Sometimes, even though a developing country may have a little bit less infrastructure, sometimes it’s easier for them to contain some of these outbreaks because you don’t have the highways, you don’t have so many commercial poultry farms, where you have people moving from one to another constantly. And so in some ways, it’s almost easier to keep a handle on some of these outbreaks in developing countries as opposed to more developed countries. But it always varies on the type of outbreak that occurs, where it occurs, and in what species it occurs,” she notes.
Although vaccines to lessen the severity of the illness continue to be developed, Smith notes that the virus is constantly adapting and unfolding in new strains. While, the impact of bird flu has thankfully not reached the dreaded levels that were feared two and three years ago, more work remains to be done to find a definitive explanation of how the avian influenza makes its way to countries like Nigeria or to countries like Egypt and Indonesia, where it has taken an even greater economic and human toll.

http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/2008-08-14-voa4.cfm

[HenryN]

Re: _|Nigeria: July-26-2008, HPAIV H5N1 In Poultry|_

Same nonsense that used used to expalin away the wild bird outbreak in the summer of 2007 in Europe (Czech Repiblic, Germany, France).

[Commonground]

Re: _|Nigeria: July-26-2008, HPAIV H5N1 In Poultry|_

[Out of Vietnam]

Nigeria: new fowl influenzal virus finding.
For Thursday, 14/ 8/ 2008, 20s: 05 GMT+7.
To organize day united nations's agriculture and food production (FAO) 11.8 annunciation found is a stream fowl influenzal virus is new ( H5N1) is developping at Nigeria.
Hereditary, this kind is dissimilar from stream H5N1 To who flared to spank at Nigeria in in the year 2006 and 2007 but virus stream nearly look-alike identify at Mind, Afghanistan and Iran in the year 2007

http://tintuconline.com.vn/vn/thegioi/217332/

[gsgs]

Re: _|Nigeria: July-26-2008, HPAIV H5N1 In Poultry|_

Wild birds maybe caused new flu strain: Nigeria

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080812/hl_nm/birdflu_nigeria_dc

[Giuseppe]

Re: _|Nigeria: July-26-2008, HPAIV H5N1 In Poultry|_

Yesterday OIE Immediate Notification Report about Benin and H5 virus detected in live poultry market.

[HenryN]

Re: _|Nigeria: July-26-2008, HPAIV H5N1 In Poultry|_

The spread of H5N1 in northern Nigeria to southern Benin during the summer paralles the spread of Uvs Lake H5N1 in Europe a year earlier.

[gsgs]

Re: _|Nigeria: July-26-2008, HPAIV H5N1 In Poultry|_

in what sense are there parallells ?

[HenryN]

Re: _|Nigeria: July-26-2008, HPAIV H5N1 In Poultry|_

in what sense are there parallells ?

The outbreak in the summer in west Africa involved the Uvs Lake clade 2.2.3 strain of H5N1, which was in circulation in Europe in late 2006 and early 2007, but was not detected until the summer. Illaria Capua had just delivered her talk at the Options VI meeting (June, 2007) stating that Europe was H5N1 free becauise of the negative data generated by various bird conservation groups focused on tests in live birds and primarily checks of fecal samples.

Within minutes of the conclusion of the Capoua talk, the Czech Republic reported H5N1 in commercial poultry, which was quickly followed by H5N1 in wild birds in multiple locations in Germany, the Czech Republic, and France. Prior to summer of 2007 outbreak, the Uvs Lake starin had never been reported Europe (it had been reported at Uvs Lake in Mongolia, across the boirder in Russia in the summer of 2006, followed by South Korea and Japan at the end of 2006, and Kuwait in early 2007). The Uvs Lake subsequently became dominant in Europe in late 2007 and early 2008.

West Africa did not report H5N1 in late 2007, early 2008 and then in the summer the were multiple reports in northern Nigeria, involving the Uvs Lake strain, which has never been reported in Africa. Now H5 is in Benin and it will likely be the Uvs Lake strain.

[HenryN]

Re: _|Nigeria: July-26-2008, HPAIV H5N1 In Poultry|_

Bird Flu - Poultry Farmers Get N42.5m


This Day (Lagos)

NEWS
19 January 2008 </B>
Posted to the web 21 January 2008
Lagos

Ogun
Eighteen poultry farmers in Ogun, whose birds and eggs were ravaged by Avian influenza, also known as "Bird flu", have received compensation of N42.5 million.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD align=right><!-- Display Google AdManager Ad for 'AllAfrica_Other_Inset'--><SCRIPT language=JavaScript type=text/javascript> GA_googleFillSlot("AllAfrica_Other_Inset");</SCRIPT><SCRIPT src="http://partner.googleadservices.com/gampad/ads?correlator=1219839240578&output=json_html&call back=_GA_googleAdEngine.setAdContentsBySlotForSync &impl=s&prev_afc=1&client=ca-pub-2420009840005975&slotname=AllAfrica_Other_Inset&pa ge_slots=AllAfrica_Other_Leaderboard&#37;2CAllAfri ca_Other_Inset&cust_params=language%3Denglish%26To pics%3Dhealth%26Countries%3Dnigeria%252Cwestafrica &cookie=ID%3D12eb1897ba9e5266%3AT%3D1196690060%3AS %3DALNI_MYcPugH4NRq_bqTduMuz7P2dTJ5Fw&ga_vid=83648 9085.1196690017&ga_sid=1219838963&ga_hid=200430026 1&ga_fc=true&url=http%3A%2F%2Fallafrica.com%2Fstor ies%2Fprintable%2F200801210403.html&ref=http%3A%2F %2Fallafrica.com%2Fstories%2F200801210403.html&lmt =1219835647&dt=1219839241125&cc=128&oe=iso-8859-1&u_h=800&u_w=1280&u_ah=770&u_aw=1280&u_cd=32&u_tz =-240&u_his=0&u_java=true&u_nplug=0&u_nmime=0&flash= 9.0.115.0"></SCRIPT>

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
The pandemic affected 123 poultry farms across nine states in the country, while the amount paid to the farmers in Ogun State represented 67.7 per cent of the compensation.
The compensation, it was gathered, was facilitated by the state government, in conjunction with the Federal Government and World Bank.
The state Commissioner for Agriculture, Dr. Kunle Salako, who accompanied by officials of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, presented the cheque to the beneficiaries.
Salako expressed the government's sympathy to the farmers over the distortion in their operations as a result of the incident.
He said the animal health component of the World Bank was the first agency to respond to the state's distress call over the pandemic.
"The Federal Government followed suit, while the state government did a lot in the provision of funds for the monitoring and the depopulation of the affected farms.
"We have also conducted enlightenment campaigns for the farmers and the birds' sellers," Salako said.
Also speaking, Dr Adedamola Soremekun, State Director of Veterinary Services, said it was sad for the farm owners to have gone through such "harrowing experience".
According to him, the poultry farmers were skeptical when they were told of the control measure to depopulate their farms before they could get any compensation.
"It was difficult for most farmers to agree with the measure, because, most of you believed that the money may never be paid.
"The depopulation is, however, necessary to control the avian influenza. We can all testify that the measure has been effective as the pandemic had been stopped," he said.
One of the farmers, Dr Taiwo Makinde, who expressed appreciation to the government and the World Bank for the financial support.
Makinde said the fear of poor compensation prompted some farmers to attempt to hide their birds from being destroyed.

http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200801210403.html

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: _|Nigeria: July-26-2008, HPAIV H5N1 In Poultry|_

Gombe wipes out bird flu

WILLIAMS ATTAH, Gombe


Gombe state government has wiped out bird flu in the state.

The information desk officer of the state bird flu, committee, Mr. Kassim Toro made the claim in an interview with the Daily Champion in Gombe.

He said that it was the prompt response of the state government which purchased drugs used in fumigating the entire area that prevented a possible outbreak of bird flu in the state.

According to him, reports reaching him had earlier showed that over three months ago, a man from BCGA area of Gombe bought some ducks from the popular Dadin Kowa Market and that the ducks were traced to the Bayo market, Bornu state.

He said as soon as the ducks landed in Gombe, hundreds of other chickens, guinea fowls and other flying birds caught up with the flu and within six hours, thousands were reported dead.

He said it took the intervention of the state government which ordered the fumigation of the Dadin Kowa Market and the entire farm and BCGA that the epidemic was put under control.

He added that the exercise also included Dadin Kowa Dam, one of the wetland areas of the country reported to be a stopping point for different kinds of birds especially from Europe, which fly to the area yearly.

"Experts have discovered that the particular specie of the bird flu found in Gombe was taken to National Vet nary Research Institute (NVRI) Vom, Plateau state where it was discovered that the virus was more deadly than the common HN51 bird flu," Toro said.

http://www.champion-newspapers.com/news/article9_281108.htm

[HenryN]

Re: _|Nigeria: July-26-2008, HPAIV H5N1 In Poultry|_

Deadlier Bird Flu Detected

December 5th, 2008



Unidentified dangerous specie of avian influenza otherwise called bird flu, much deadlier than the common HN51, was recently discovered in Gombe State but has been promptly wiped out.
Mr. Kassim Toro, the Desk Officer in charge of Information in the Gombe State Bird Flu Committee, stated that the name of the new specie of the deadly virus is yet to be ascertained.
While commenting on the development, the Desk Officer said only a prompt response by spraying the area and the entire eastern border of the state averted a possible outbreak of the yet to be identified new virus.
A BCGA area resident of Gombe metropolis had about three months ago, brought in some infected ducks from Dadin Kowa Market and those birds were eventually traced to Bayo market in neighbouring Borno State.
It was learnt that the virus, upon the arrival of the ducks in Gombe, spread like wild fire to other birds, killing thousands of chickens, guinea fowls and even flying birds within six hours including the ducks.
The news, upon reaching the government, saw a team swiftly deployed to spray the BCGA area and the entire eastern boundary of the state, including one of the country’s most famous wetlands-(a place where migratory birds stop over to drink water) in Dadinkowa.
Efforts to ascertain prevalence of the disease through testing of birds trapped at the wetlands and random tests on domestic and wild birds in the boarder settlements including BCGA area showed no trace of any form of bird flu.
Meanwhile, experts according to Kassim, took samples of the particular specie of the bird flu virus found in Gombe to the National Veterinary Research Institute (NVRI) Vom, Plateau State where it was discovered to be more deadly than the common HN51 bird flu but are yet to identify it.

http://leadership.nigeriannewsservice.com/news/117/ARTICLE/3418/2008-12-05.html

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